Live From Microsoft's Game Jam...

Microsoft has been reaching far into the game developer community... I've attended Unity 3D training sessions at Microsoft's Playa Vista campus where there is a triple-wide conference room with multiple projectors and microphone setup.

Today I'm here at Microsoft's Game Jam for Studio City's Walter Reed Middle School.

Long Story: I attended a Unity 3D session at the Microsoft campus last year, then again this year... I invited Microsoft's Adam Tuliper down to check out the Long Beach Sea Base and was thrilled when he actually did come... Then at the last Unity 3D session this month, I happened to ask a Dad a question and he turned out to be Microsoft's Bret Stateham who introduced me to Universal Music Group's Nia Angelina who was at the time planning today's Game Jam.  Nia introduced me to Microsoft's Daniel Egan.  This team of Nia, Daniel, Bret is responsible for the organization of today's event. 

This is the second Game Jam for Walter Reed Middle School.  Today, one youth stood up and showed off the game he made with the tools he learned from the first event.  Before last September's Game Jam, he'd tried developing with Javascript, but found it difficult.  The Game Jam provided him with a basic set of tools.  A "starter pack" game, a game engine, free tools for vector graphics editing and sound generation and mixing.  His game is impressive.  It's based on the Game Maker platform with sprites developed using Inkscape and sounds made from a collection of websites and tools like Audacity.  He's gone beyond what he learned, and uses a scripting language called Game Maker Language (GML).

It's framed like a Hack-A-Thon.  There's food, there are presentations, and the kids are working and having fun.

I asked the youth who'd presented the game why he was back today.  After all, he'd seen the presentation before... I wanted to know if it was different from the last time.  His feedback?  It was a good refresher, and he just likes being here in the environment.  I can empathize.

Not everything he knows now came from what he learned last September.  He took the foundation and built on it.  I asked him how he learned... From friends?  His response was "Google and YouTube".

As the participants completed sound compositions and characters, they took the mic and shared with others.  Very cool stuff! Check out Game Over Guy!

Now, those of you who know me, will know what I mean when I say that I was already planning the Long Beach Game Jam at the Long Beach Sea Base and visualizing the framework for the summer Game Jam competition for youth. 8)

And a little footnote... I did have a little prior experience with a game I labelled Burger Barn and put together during a trip to San Antonio, Texas a few years ago.  Just for fun I'll put that up for you later... Now... be nice!